eat to feed the stress

By Fiona Kirk

Every time you eat, your body will either burn your food as energy or store it as fat.

When you are working really hard to lose weight and you suddenly ‘hit a plateau’ or worse still, gain a couple of pounds it can be seriously dispiriting.  The temptation to ‘just give up’ can be strong.  Understanding why this happens is paramount to your continued weight loss.

It's all in the hormones!

It’s got a lot do to with the stress hormones in your body.  If your body is under ANY sort of stress (emotional – workload, deadlines, family or relationship problems, money worries, physical – over-exercising, under-eating, missing meals, environmental – city living, smoky atmospheres, air-conditioning) to name but a few, your brain thinks that your life is under threat and releases a substance that immediately stimulates your adrenal glands to release the stress hormones, adrenaline and cortisol.  Adrenaline is the one that ensures that you react quickly and efficiently in a stressful situation and Cortisol is the one that releases the energy from its stores in the form of ‘sugars’ and fats.  AND – importantly ensures that these stores are ‘re-stocked’ regularly.

This is an incredibly efficient system, providing everything your body needs to react swiftly to what it perceives as a dangerous situation.  Once the stress is over, the adrenal glands stop pumping out these hormones and your body returns to ‘normal’.  However, if the stress is on-going, your body is continually looking for ‘fuel’ and an increased blood sugar level to keep the energy going.

Constant onslaught

Your body is simply doing the best it can to equip you for a constant onslaught of stress, to help you cope with the threats and anxieties it perceives you to be facing each day and to keep you functioning as efficiently as possible.

Some people eat more when they are stressed, others eat very little – both are counter-productive and lead to weight gain in the long run.  As you can see from above, cortisol (while absolutely essential) can be the ‘devil in disguise’ by encouraging your body to store fat when stress is on-going.  If you restrict your diet or cut calories your body inevitably thinks there is a famine out there and that causes stress.  It will slow down your metabolism and hold on to your precious fat stores.

The solution is to find a way of eating that tells your body that all is well, reassuring it that there is ‘no threat’.  You need to change the underlying biochemistry and ‘feed the stress’ not starve it!

How do you do that?

• keep your metabolism ‘firing on all cylinders’ by eating ‘little and often’ and become a ‘Healthy Grazer’.  Studies show that eating quality, balanced small meals/snacks every 3 hours can reduce your body’s damaging cortisol levels by 20% in 2 weeks
• eat meals and snacks that are a good balance of carbohydrates (whole grains, vegetables, fruit) protein (lean meat, game, poultry, fish + shellfish, cheese, eggs, soya) and essential fats (oily fish, nuts, seeds) to provide the wide range of nutrients required for your whole body to work as well as it can and should
• if you are exercising regularly keep your ‘glycogen’ stores topped up by eating a balanced snack within an hour to ensure your body doesn’t see the physical output as a ‘stress’ and alert the cortisol ‘devil’
• include ‘thermogenic’ foods as often as possible every day to turn up the body heat and help ‘burn fat’ – chilli, spices, ginger, cinnamon, turmeric etc.
• eat early in the morning EVERY DAY
• include protein in EVERY meal and snack to slow down the rate at which the stomach empties food into the next part of the digestive tract and ‘keep you feeling fuller for longer’
• don’t ‘buy into’ the ‘high protein/low carbohydrate’ thing – initial weight loss results from this style of eating, but your body is literally ‘eating itself’ in order to function and muscle is broken down ‘big time’ to help feed your body cells (not great if you want to look lean and feel good!)
• ‘drink a swimming pool’ of good, clean mineral water every day!!  At least a large glass or small bottle every 3 hours
• restrict your ‘dairy’ intake to natural ‘live’ yoghurt, cottage cheese and occasional hard goat’s or ewe’s cheddar and use alternative butters, milks and creams wherever possible (nut, seed, soya, oat)
• include some essential fats with every meal and snack if you can (their health-giving properties, their ‘fat-burning’ qualities and their ability to keep you feeling fuller for longer are one of the big weight loss and weight maintenance secrets that ‘diet bunnies’ just never seem to understand or embrace!)
• try to sit down, relax and enjoy every meal and snack to keep those levels of cortisol under control
• always have some protein when you have fruit, fruit juice or fruit smoothies as a snack (chicken leg, a few nuts, a handful of seeds, a few cubes of hard cheese, a cold boiled egg).  Fruit releases its ‘sugars’ into the bloodstream too quickly but the protein helps to create the ‘drip feed’ effect resulting in good blood sugar maintenance
• have a ‘treat’ if and when you fancy a ‘treat’ to avoid dangerous feelings of deprivation but stay away from the sugary/salty/fatty varieties
• don’t feel you have to categorise your foods into ‘breakfasts’, ‘lunches’, ‘dinners’ and ‘snacks’.  Eat what you really feel like eating every 3 hours.  It’s a great way to keep you fuelled and avoid ‘cravings’ that invariably lead to bingeing on ‘junk’, ‘fast’ or overly-processed foods
• a heavy workload, deadlines and business travel can upset your ‘little and often’ eating plan BIG TIME!  Try to ensure you have ‘healthy snacks’ in your handbag/desk drawer/glove compartment to deal with the inevitable ‘energy dips’ which the body regards as another ‘stress’ and in steps the cortisol ‘devil’ again.  Little bags or trays of baby raw vegetables, baby tomatoes, carrot sticks, sliced or chopped fruit, small pots of hummus, tzatziki, cottage cheese or guacamole, Marigold vegetable bouillon powder and sachets of Miso soup, fruit smoothies, natural ‘live’ yoghurt, cold boiled eggs, chicken portions, fresh prawns, ‘fishy’ sushi, mini ‘wraps’, bean, rice or lentil salads from the ‘deli’ counter, mini oatcakes and rye crackers, mini ‘babybel’ cheeses, fresh dates stuffed with almonds or pistachios, packs of raw nuts and seeds, mixed olives with feta, fruit and herb tea sachets, bottles of tomato or vegetable juice, water, water and more water!    
• if you have trouble sleeping or regularly wake up in the middle of the night and can’t get back to sleep (blood sugar issues all over again here!)  don’t deprive yourself – good sleep is so important for de-stressing the body – go for a couple of oatcakes with cottage cheese and turkey, a small pot of natural yoghurt with a couple of dates, a cup of warm milk with a few squares of deep, dark chocolate dropped in – watch them melt! or a couple of Ryvita with almond butter